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The Armchair Empire recently reviewed Fallout, the classic sci-fi RPG set in a post-apocalyptic future. Although the game is beginning to show its age in some respects, the review reveals the power of an immersive setting in drawing players into the story.

Probably the important element that keeps "Fallout" together is the sense of style. It is a humorous, satirical, and thoroughly cohesive sense of time and place. The playfulness and fears of the 1950s are easily moved forward a century without feeling cheesy or mentally insulting. You see it in the conversation screens with the vacuum tubes and speaker cones, the armor and prosthetics on the major NPCs, the cut scenes showing off American life before the bombs fell, even the simple and smiley line art in the character sheet and in the manual. The style ties the game together into a tightly knit whole. Without it, Fallout probably would not be nearly as enjoyable.

The Cold War is long gone and we don't have our children going through bomb drills or watching safety films full of smiling folks who tell them what to do in the event that somebody decides to drop a nuke somewhere in the U.S. Fallout takes us to a time and place where that sort of thing might well happen. Almost a decade later, it remains an excellent example of how to make an RPG with character and soul. Mind the radscorpions.

Armchair Empire: Fallout Review

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